Bearman Cartoon: Presidential Scare Tactics

This editorial cartoon came to me as I was listening to President Barack Obama’s speech in Elkhart, Indiana this past week.

“If we don’t act immediately, our nation will sink into a crisis that, at some point, we may be unable to reverse.”

That scare tactic, reminded me of the things then President George Bush said after September 11, in order to pass a strong Terror Bill.

I like the fact that he takes his message to the people and disagree with Robert Schlesinger that he can go to the well once too often and overuse this tactic.    But I am uncomfortable with words that intend to scare people into doing thing they wouldn’t otherwise.  On the other hand I think it is disingenuous for House/Senate Republican to call him out for fear mongering when Bush did it himself.  I, on the other hand, have all the rights to call anyone on this.

I am not sold on many of the elements of the  stimulus package.  I think much of the turmoil in the markets has been due to Wall Street and Businesses waiting to see if the government would pull the trigger to help save them rather than working on a plan to save themselves.  Personally I agree with an article I read in the Economist, that concluded that no matter if the stimulus package works or not, eventually the economy will turn around and Obama will get the credit.

BTW…for the two people who keep track…what do you think of my new Obama?

Drawing Barack Obama Cartoon Part 2

So the other day I wrote about trying to draw Barack Obama in cartoon form for future editorial cartoons.

I decided to scan just two of the many pages of doodles. None of them I was happy with but still a work in progress.

Drawing Barack Obama

I am one of those people who have little time for my hobby of drawing because the day job gets in the way.   So typically when I am doing one of my hack editorial cartoons, I am working in Photoshop with my Wacom board.  I wish I had the time to draw things out freehand, scan it and then ink in Photoshop because no matter how used to the Wacom I get, it doesn’t match what I can do with pen and paper.

Anyway, this week I find myself away from my Wacom and have several ideas running through my head.  So far I haven’t really liked how my caricatures of Barack Obama have come out and each one has looked completely different.  So for the past 3 hours I have been doing nothing but drawing Obamas face over and over.  Chin and Ears are easy…its the placement of everything else that just doesn’t seem right from image to image.  I finally got it so it is OK IMO.

Then what happens.  I am surfing the net and come across an article on Cagle Cartoons call “Obama 101” by Taylor Jones describing…HOW TO DRAW OBAMA.  WTF.  How come I didn’t do this first?

 Ehh…I’ll stick with what I got.   To be revealed soon!!!

Free Font of your own Handwriting

Thanks to this great tip at www.drawn.ca, there is a online tool called YourFonts.com where you can create a font of your own handwriting.

A great tool, especially for cartoonists who do all/most of their work on the computer. All you need to do is go to the website (or click on this image)

The process is easy:

• Print the Template
• Fill it out
• Scan it and Upload it
• Put the finished product in your Fonts folder.

Two things to think about.   One, I think I would have better results to my liking if I found a medium point versus a fine point pen. Second, pay attention to the hash marks so you keep your lettering the same size. The first time I tried it, I didn’t pay enough attention to that and when I typed a sentence, it looked like a rollercoaster.

So introducing the Bearman Font:

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